Colony House Apartments on Scenic Highway to be auctioned March 8

Residents of Colony House Apartments on Scenic Highway in Pensacola face an uncertain future with a change in the properties’ ownership set to occur soon.

The apartments, spread across three parcels, will be up for auction March 8 at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building of the First Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. The sale arrives after the properties’ former owner, Perdido Housing Corp., failed to make payments on its mortgage. As a result, the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Bank of Oklahoma foreclosed on the loan.

Robert Crongeyer, appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida as special master in the case and an attorney at Pensacola firm Beggs & Lane, said the bank similarly foreclosed on other properties in Okaloosa and Santa Rosa counties. Auctions for those sites occurred Feb. 9 in Fort Walton Beach and at the end of January in Milton.

Asked by the News Journal how the auction of the Colony House Apartments could impact residents’ rents and leases, Crongeyer said it remains to be determined.

The Colony House Apartments, located at 800 Scenic Highway, will be sold at public auction on March 8.

(Photo: Joe Baucum/jbaucum@pnj.com)

“I can’t surmise what might happen in the future,” he said. “I know that in some of the others, the residents were not affected. But going forward, I can’t predict what the new owner might do.”

On Thursday at the apartments’ building at 900 Scenic Highway, 65-year-old resident Judy Cannon said she had not previously been informed that the property would be sold.

“This is news to me,” said Cannon, who has resided at Colony House Apartments for nearly a decade. “I like staying here, and I don’t want to move if I don’t have to.”

Cannon, a hotline specialist for Conair Corp. who works from home, said she pays about $700 each month to rent her 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom and two-bathroom unit. She lives at the apartment by herself, but the extra space comes in handy when she has family visiting. It also provides space for a home office.

The Colony House Apartments, located at 800 Scenic Highway, will be sold at public auction on March 8.

(Photo: Brandon Girod/cgirod@pnj.com)

“My concern is do I have to find another place to live and how fast will I have to?” she said. “Trying to find one in this price range, as nice as it is here, would be very hard.”

Michael Kent, the registered agent for Perdido Housing Corp., could not be reached by the News Journal on Thursday. According to court records, the court ruled that the corporation owed the Bank of Oklahoma more than $21.7 million.

Crongeyer said it remains to be seen how much the Colony House Apartments will fetch at the auction. But he said based on the property’s value — assessed in 2017 by the county appraiser at a total of more than $3.4 million — the price could be quite large.

“At any auction, you don’t know what people are going to bid,” he said. “I would anticipate because of the value of the properties, that the bids will be substantial.”